“There are no tears there,” I tell him, expecting him to stop, afraid that more pain will follow.
He laughs, and then he kisses the place where he just hurt me. After several moments, I almost forget the pain as other feelings consume me. Again I am shivering, but this time for reasons I didn’t know possible.
Afterwards, he straightens my clothes and walks me to the edge of the orchard. As always, I know he will watch until I am in my door. He will not come near the house. He never has.
Before I walk away, he tells me, “If you are good, there will be joy like that.” Then he squeezes my hand tightly and adds, “But if you are not, there will be worse pain than our first moment. You choose your lot in this world, Verena. Do you understand me, Wife?”
“Yes, Jakob.”
“Be ready, and I will come for you.”
“Yes, Jakob.”
***
It is only a week later that Jakob leads me through the castle. We are far from any other house, far enough that should I scream no one would hear me. I’m not sure why I’m thinking such things. He is gentle with me lately.
“I trust you, Verena.” He cups my face in his hands like I am a child. “You will be faithful and good, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
He kisses me in a way that makes quite clear that he does not think me a child. At first I was ashamed of the things I let him do to my body, but over the past week, he has twice demonstrated that he does not like it when I refuse to accept his wishes. It is not what a Good Wife does.
“I like to please you,” he reminds me.
“Yes, Jakob.”
“Would you like to see your bedroom?”
“Yes, Jakob.”
There are clothes of my size, but there are others dresses hanging in the closet, ones that would not fit me. I ask, “Whose are these?”
“Those are my wife’s clothes.” He smiles that midnight smile.
I retract my hand from the larger and smaller dresses. I want to find an answer to his question that does not frighten me, but nothing comes to me. I look at my feet, unsure of what to do.
He walks over to stand beside me and almost idly, he strokes my hair. “You are my wife.”
“I am.”
“Then those are yours now,” he explains.
I nod, and he orders me to bath and unbind my hair. “Like the night I first saw you.”
***
After several weeks, I can no longer stand the silence and boredom. Jakob is often gentle, but he is not always kind. There are moments, flashes of the man I glimpsed the night we said our vows, but they are rare.
He insists that I dress only in long white dresses, and he slips soft white shoes on my feet every time I leave the bedroom. Within the bedroom, I am not given any clothing, but in the rest of the house, I must wear this odd uniform that makes me unsure if I am wearing mourning clothes again or if I am wearing bridal clothes.
I ask to go out, to do something to keep the castle up, or even to plant a small garden. Jakob refuses every request. I am given books to study, guides on what a wife should do.
After the first full month, Jakob tells me, “I need to go away for a week.”
I’m thrilled. I’ve not traveled since Bastian’s death. The only place I’ve gone is from my Father’s house to school or the town, and then last month, from my Father’s house to Jakob’s castle. “When do we leave?”
Jakob shakes his head and smiles at me. “Not you, Wife. You are mine. No one else can look upon you now.”
“Ever?” I ask weakly.
For the first time since our vows, I see the full of the man I married. He strikes me and hurts me as he did that night. Afterwards, I am bleeding onto the bed, and Jakob is brushing my hair back.
“They would try to destroy what we have,” he says. “They would look at you and think impure thoughts. They would ruin you.”
“I’m sorry,” I say because it is what I know he expects.
“I spent years looking for you, watching, waiting. You don’t know how hard it was.” He sits up and stares at me. “Can I trust you?”
I nod and gingerly push myself to sit beside him.
“It was you I wanted all along,” he tells me. “I stopped at the orchard that first day because I’d seen you in town.” He gently kisses my forehead. “You were always meant to be mine. I need you to be worthy of my love.”
I swallow hard and tell him, “I don’t want anyone else to look at me. I just asked to go because I will miss you.”
Jakob is himself again at my words. He slides to the floor and puts uncomfortable white shoes on my feet. Before he slips each shoe on, he kisses my foot. Then he stands, and I hold out my hand to him as he’s taught me to do.
Once I’m standing, he washes away the blood he’s drawn from my body. There’s nothing to do for the bruises or swelling, but the blood is soon gone. I stay still for all of his ministrations, not even a whimper crosses my lips.
Jakob dresses me as he does every day, and then he takes my hand and leads me to his study.
“I need you to hold something while I’m gone.” He opens a cabinet slightly and reaches into it.
I cannot see what’s else is inside the cabinet, but from it, he has withdrawn a delicate white egg. It’s perfect. No spots mark the surface, and the only imperfections are two small holes where the contents were removed.
Dutifully, I hold out my hand. “It’s beautiful.”
Jakob smiles. “And fragile.” He places the egg in the palm of my hand. “You must carry it with you all day. Anywhere you go, it must be with you.”
I frown.
“I’ll know if you don’t obey me,” he warns. “You said you would be good, Wife. You said you would be faithful.”
“I am.”
For a moment, Jakob seems devastated. “You need to stay that way. I don’t want to have to hurt you. I want to be right this time. No one else was faithful, Verena, but you know me. You’re the only one who’s ever understood me.”
A truth I’ve refused to consider starts pressing against my lips. I want to ask him the question as much as I don’t want to know. Is he the monster who killed my sisters? I know that I am married to a monster, but is he the monster, the one who has haunted me all these years?
I’ve seen Jakob’s anger, and I’ve felt the results. His words make me consider the full depth of his monstrosity, but to ask would be dangerous. To know might destroy me.
“This key is to the only locked room in the castle,” he says, holding out an old-fashioned key on a length of red velvet and motioning me to him.
I lean forward, and he puts the necklace over my head, so the key is hanging over my heart. The velvet reminds me of a trail of blood now that I am forced to think of all of the facts that mean my husband might be the Maiden Thief.
If Jakob is the killer I am one of the stolen girls.
“How long have you been waiting for me?” I ask quietly.
My husband smiles and tells me, “For years I didn’t know it was you, just that there was a Good Wife I could find. I thought it could be you. Your birthday was the right time, but then I saw what you’d written, and I knew you understood me.”
“When I was sixteen,” I whisper.
Jakob kisses me as he does when I give him the right answers. I stay perfectly still as he does so. Then he walks to the door and waits for me to follow.
Mutely, I do so.
“Karis and Amina were replacing you, not the other way around,” he tells me as he pulls the door to the study closed behind us.
“The only locked door beside this one”—he lifts the key from between my breasts and then drops it so it thunks against my body—“is the doors to the outside world. You understand that you must never leave me.”
I nod.
“There are traps on the grounds.” He strokes my face and throat. “There are beasts that I set free to roam when I am away. To protect you. To protect us. You understand, don’t
you?”
I nod again.
“You were my quest, Verena.” He touches my swollen eye roughly, drawing fresh pain. “I have to keep you safe.”
This time, I force myself to say, “Thank you, Jakob.” I meet his eyes and add, “I’ll be good and faithful.”
And then he’s gone. My husband, the Maiden Thief, the killer of my sisters, has left me alone in my beautiful prison. I cannot move for several hours. I sit in the silence and think. I had been right that the killer took Amina—and that she had gone with Jakob. I had been right that there was something terrible in his smile the night I had seen him with my sister. Worst of all, I had found a pattern to the Maiden Thief’s crimes. I had figured out why. There was so much that I had known, and the knowing still hadn’t saved me or my sisters.
After pondering it, I know that I cannot simply try to escape the house without first opening that locked room.
Whatever is in that room is what I need to find. Maybe it’s a way to get free. Maybe it’s Amina. The others surely must be long dead, but she has only been gone a year. I have hopes that she might still live—or at the least, that I might be able to give her a proper burial.
The egg is the easiest part. I wrap it in cloth and hide it in an urn. There is no way for Jakob to know, and even if he does, I would rather risk my death than do as he orders.
He has killed my sisters. I will not stay here. I will not allow him the happiness he has found in me for a moment longer than necessary.
First, I need to see what’s in the forbidden room. I pull off the slippers that Jakob insists I wear, and I debate what to do about my dress. He’s so insistent that I only wear white slippers and white dresses that brush the tops of my feet. I can have bare arms or low cut fronts or even dresses with no backs, but my skirts must always touch my feet, which must also be clad in white.
Whatever reason he has to keep my legs and feet cloaked in white, I refuse it now. If he wants me to do it, it cannot be good. I steal a sash from the curtains and use it as a belt of sorts. My skirts are tied up around my hips, keeping my legs bare.
And then I begin to try every door in the castle.
***
When I finally find the door where the key fits, I am afraid. The proof is within this room, the answer to my sisters’ fate, the details about the Maiden Thief that I thought I had wanted to know.
I turn the key and open the door. There is a soft whooshing sound that fills the dim room, as if many hearts are beating in time, as if many breaths are slipping away at once. The floor is wet with pink-tinged water, and glass caskets with gilt edges rise up like islands in a red sea.
Most of the caskets are closed, but others are lined up against the far wall with lids open still. They are waiting to be filled. One of those caskets would be mine if Jakob found me here.
Steadily, I walk through the water, aware of another harsher sound as I go. It is my own sobs, seeming preternaturally loud in the still of exhaled breaths and swishing water. I stare at them, the taken girls. They are arranged in boxes, alive but not moving, eye closed, lips parted as if on silent screams. Each of the missing girls is in a glass coffin. They are preserved with tubes running into their caskets, keeping them alive and silent.
I made the choices that led me to this room, this horror, this blood on my hands. I was a different person then, before this began. I didn’t see the way the path twisted, the way Jakob had so clearly told me that he was the Maiden Thief. I see it now. I see the proof before me.
The blood-tinged water would stain my dress if I hadn’t held the skirts up, stain my shoes if I’d worn them, stain the beautiful egg if I hadn’t hidden it inside an urn to keep it safe.
I back out of the room and sit on the floor. I unroll my long hair and wipe the blood from my feet. Then I twist my hair up again, stained with the blood of my sisters. I am grateful that Jakob likes my hair bound and my strengths hidden. I am grateful that my father chose to deny me comfort. Their callousness made me strong enough to survive this day.
I glance back at the rows of glass-coffined women. I don’t know what he’s done to the girls, how he keeps them like this, but I swear to them, “I will save you. I promise I won’t leave you here forever.”
And then I pull the door closed and return to the library to read the books Jakob has left for my daily studies.
***
By the time Jakob returns, I have a plan. I spent years waiting for men to figure out how to stop the Maiden Thief, for my father to realize that he needed to try to save his family. I am done waiting on someone else to save me or the people I love.
I greet my husband dutifully.
Jakob is restrained, though. He doesn’t kiss me, and for that I am grateful. There is a hatred within me that he has been nurturing for years. I didn’t realize it was a hatred for him for a long time, but now I know. Now, I’ve felt his harsh violence, and I’ve seen what he’s done to the others.
When I walk into his study, I see the cabinet behind Jakob. The doors are open, and in it, I see the twelve beautiful decorative eggs. Several are broken. All are bloodstained. The taken girls had all failed this test. I’m hoping I can succeed where they did not—for them and for myself.
Jakob watches me with such raw hope in his eyes as he asks, “Where is the egg I gave you? I want to put it with the others.”
“Here.” I hold it out. The egg is as unblemished as it was when I accepted it from his hand.
He takes the egg and stares at it for several heartbeats. When he looks at me, there is such joy and pride in his expression, that I feel a touch less afraid. I force myself to smile. I know now what he is. I know that my blood will join my sisters’ if I disappoint him.
“You’re truly her,” he says in a voice filled with wonder. “I knew I’d find you if I looked long enough.”
I nod.
“There were others . . .”
“Other wives,” I supply, and then quickly add, “I’ve seen their clothes.”
Jakob smiles at me, proud of my mind as he has been so often. “But they weren’t faithful and good.” He caresses the egg in his hand. “You were the one I was waiting to find. I was impatient before, hoping to find you before you were ready.”
“How many?” I ask.
Jakob glances at the eggs. “None that matter now.”
My heart twists in pain, thinking of the twelve women trapped in glass coffins. They bled. Maybe not all of them, or maybe just not the first one, but I can imagine my own terror if Jakob took me into that room. I’ve seen what waits there. I’ve seen the glass prisons. I would fight.
I will fight. I ball my hands into fists to keep from striking him. I want to hurt him, but he is stronger than me. I must wait. I force myself to swallow my rage a little longer.
“I’m here,” I tell him. “You found me.”
He looks at me in awe, and then he caresses the unblemished egg like it’s a living thing. “I can set them free now.”
“Free?”
Jakob nods. “Unplug them.” He gently places the egg on a delicate stand and puts it in the center of the cabinet. Then he comes to me and takes my hand. “I was afraid I was wrong, that I’d need to try again if you weren’t a Good Wife. You understand, don’t you? I was always faithful to each wife. I didn’t touch them, though, not after I set them aside.”
I can’t speak. I can’t imagine the horror of being kept entrapped. The others, my sisters in blood and in act, were all trapped in glass boxes. Some had been imprisoned for years. I feel sickened at the horror of it, at him, the monster I’d married.
Silently, we walk to the room, and Jakob releases my hand. He takes the key from around my neck.
“I did it all to find you, though,” he says. “You are worth every sacrifice.”
“Every one?” I ask, a bit of temper sliding into my words despite best intentions.
Jakob doesn’t hear it.
“May I open it?” I ask, and before he can question me, I add, “I wa
nt to help you, Husband.”
The words are like poison in my mouth, but I need to be the one with the key. My hand drops to the knife I have tied to my thigh. I’m not sure I can use it well enough, but I will try. For the others, I will try. For my freedom, I will try.
He hesitates, but after a moment of staring into my eyes, he relents and gives me the key. I force myself not to sigh in relief as I take it in my shaking hand. It clatters loudly in the quiet hallway as I slip it into the lock.
“They don’t matter now,” Jakob tells me, as if my nerves are over being somehow un-special, as if the pain of the taken is immaterial, as if the death of my sisters is something I could condone.
I turn the key in lock, grateful that he is staring at the door instead of at me.
Quickly then, I step to the side. “I’m not as strong as you. Can you open the door?”
He rewards my implied compliment with a smile before he pulls open the door. I stay back as he steps into that room. I’ve been in it often in his absence—but the very sight of that blood-stained chamber still brings an ache to my heart.
There are no prisoners in glass boxes now. The floor is covered with the shards of glass, and the taken all rest in soft beds elsewhere in the castle. They are safe . . . as long as I don’t fail now.
He stands in the bloodied room, glass all around him. The shock of it makes him motionless at first. He looks at the empty spaces where the women he’s stolen have been imprisoned. Then, his gaze falls upon me.
“What have you done?”
For the first time, I am wholly myself, despite him, despite the terror I still feel.
“Freed them,” I say.
He turns back to reach for me, but I jerk away and slam the door shut. My hand is fumbling for the key I still clutch in my hand. I need to succeed in this. He is stronger, and if he escapes, all of the girls he stole will die. My sisters will die. I will die.
“Where are they?” He’s pushing the door, trying to shove it open. “What did you do?”
I jab the key into the lock and turn it.
“WIFE!” Jakob roars, his fists pounding the door. “Open this door. Now.”